Locked
by December Camie
Summary: AU One shot- In a world where people must exchange their Hearts to survive, a dragon and a wizard must learn to deal with their past and work together for a better future in which they both can live peacefully. Features dragon!Alfred and wizard!Arthur


"_When a person's Heart Locks on another's…well, the feeling is quite impossible to describe. Being Locked is a bond, a special relationship if you wish, between two individuals who choose to devote their lives to each other. Neither can escape, nor can either break it. It is a promise; the promise of a lifetime."_

_-Unknown_

(Locked)

The bartender was not a dumb man. He might have looked it after working in this dump for ten years, but he wasn't. He could tell when something was right or wrong. He could tell when things looked suspicious enough to be strange. And right now, he was having one of those moments.

He wasn't sure where the feeling came from. But, his grandfather had been a magician, so the bartender supposed he got the ability from him. He could tell whenever there were sorcerers in his pub, but never before had he felt it on this level. He could feel it in the air, the way it was weighed down from tension. The only explanation was that there were people with magic in his bar. But who and how powerful was another story, and he wasn't willing to start a fight when he knew so little about the situation.

The bartender stood to the side, arms crossed, staring out at his pub with distrust in his eyes. His gaze specifically lingered on a hooded figure seated alone at a table in the corner. There was little the bartender could tell about the hooded figure, other than he had bright green eyes that blazed emerald in the dark. And it wasn't very hard to tell who the stranger was watching.

The hooded figure- suspicious, strange and possibly magical figure- was focused completely on another person who was across the room. This person was extremely different from the other in about every possible way. Firstly, this person was not shrouded in shadows. Quite the opposite, in fact. This person seemed to attract light where the other repelled it. He was sitting at the piano, laughing with the gaggle of teenage girls that surrounded him. He had golden blonde hair, and light blue eyes that glowed with joy. He wore glasses too, but all of the girls adored him anyway; there was hardly a mark on his skin to mar his face.

The bartender looked back and forth between the two with a frown. Why would a person as dark and so obviously bad as the shrouded figure be interested in the teenager with gold hair and light eyes? Were they connected somehow? Did they know each other? And if so, why weren't they sitting to each other?

He turned back to the shrouded figure just in time to see his pale hand clench around his drinking glass, instantly shattering it. At the same time, there was the sound of loud shrieking and the bench at the piano- the one where the golden boy and the group of girls where sitting- collapsed. They all fell to the floor with a loud crash. The bartender was so surprised that for a moment all he could do was stand there and gape.

Then the silence was interrupted by a chair being drawn back, and the shrouded figure stalked out of the bar. Immediately, the teenager scrambled upwards, apologizing to girls as quickly as he could before running after the other.

"Arthur!" the teenager cried. "Arthur, wait up! C'mon, dude slow down-"

The door slammed shut, leaving the entire bar room in shock. Instantly, the heavy weight tension that the bartender had been feeling disappeared. He blinked. Those two must have been wizards, that was the only explanation why that had whole thing had happened.

The bartender sighed and shook his head. He was glad he wasn't a sorcerer, too much energy pulsing around them to focus anyway.

(Locked)

"Arthur!" the teenager yelled, trying to catch up to the man in the cloak. "Arthur, wait up! C'mon, dude slow down-"

"Shut up, Alfred," the shrouded figure- Arthur- snapped without pausing. "I am not in the mood to talk right now. Especially not to you."

"What? Why not? Did I do something wrong?" Alfred had to jog to keep up with his companion. He frowned at Arthur, his brow wrinkling.

"No- wait, yes. Yes, you did Alfred. You did do something wrong. You _always_ do something wrong."

"I do not!" Alfred retorted.

"Yes, you do." Arthur scoffed. "There's no point in arguing; you will just lose."

"Will you stop treating me like I'm stupid? I'm not dumb, you know."

"Oh, well that's hard to believe." Arthur said sarcastically. "Is this from the same person who tried to eat worms with his feet?"

Alfred flushed. "It was a dare," he said hotly. "And if I remember correctly it was the same dare that got you the potions you needed to summon that demon person thingy. Which never even worked, by the way."

"It would have if you had not kept interrupting me every time I tried to summon him!"

"God, why are you so grumpy today?" Alfred groaned, running a hand through his hair. "You've been like this ever since you woke up."

"Well I am _so _sorry that some of us have bad days." Arthur said. "Not all of us are Mr. Brightside like you, Alfred. Get used to it."

"No, you get used to it." Alfred said, reaching forward and grabbing the other's arm, forcing both of them to stop. Arthur looked down at Alfred's hand, then up at his face. He scowled.

"Release me," he said coldly. Alfred stood his ground.

"No," he said firmly.

"Alfred, if you don't release your hold on me right this second, I swear I will-"

"No, I'm not going to let you go until we talk about this. You can curse me all you want, but you know it won't do any good against my strength if I'm committed."

Silence.

"What do you want to talk about?" Arthur asked slowly. Relief broke out over Alfred's face, and his grip loosened slightly.

"Exactly what I said before. Why are you so grumpy?"

"I am not-"

"Yes you are, don't deny it. We've traveled together long enough that I know you by now. If I did something wrong, tell me and I'll apologize. If you don't tell me, I'm never going to know and we'll be at each other's throats for the rest of the week."

Arthur looked away from Alfred, glaring at the dirt road. Alfred waited patiently for him to speak.

"I hate it when you act like that," Arthur finally admitted. "When you go off on your own and leave me behind all by myself."

"You mean like back with what happened in the bar just now?" Alfred asked. "You're the one who caused the bench to break?" Arthur nodded.

"But- but Arthur, why would you do that?" Alfred said, exasperated. "I mean, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now that you confessed-"

"Calm down, Alfred, this isn't a trial." Arthur said. "I didn't do anything serious."

"But someone could've got hurt! What if one of the girls broke a bone or something?"

"Well, they didn't. So, there's no need to worry." Arthur rolled his eyes.

"We've talked about this before," Alfred said, frustration evident in his voice. "We agreed that you weren't going to use magic unless we needed you to."

"We _discussed_ it; _you_ agreed with it, _I_ however did no such thing." Arthur said with a scowl. "I need my magic like I need to breathe. You wouldn't understand-"

"Oh, I perfectly understand." Alfred said, a sharp tone in his voice for the first time. Arthur looked up to find that the other's eyes had gone hard, and his pupils had slanted into thin ovals, much like a cat's. That was never a good sign.

"I think you're forgetting that I am a creature born of magic myself," Alfred continued to say. "Where as you are a human, not born of magic, but taught it."

A flash a white hot anger flashed through Arthur at his companion's words; who did Alfred think he was? Without Arthur, Alfred would never even have the ability to control his magic, much less use it safely! How was it fair that he could criticize Arthur on how he chose to use his gift when Alfred himself was a fire breathing dragon shape shifter that had hurt more people than Arthur could count?

"Don't you dare say that to me," Arthur hissed. "You are nothing without me. In fact, you would die if wasn't here to make sure your Heart didn't burn itself out from the amount of uncontrolled magic you harbor."

Alfred's eyes narrowed. "And you wouldn't even be able to practice your magic if I wasn't here to give you the magic to work with. Humans aren't born with magic, are they? That's why you have to Lock Hearts with other magical creatures in order to do your trade."

That was when Arthur lost it.

"_Shut up_!" Arthur shrieked, his eyes blazing. "Shut up! You have no idea what you're talking about- you are nothing but a child! You don't understand what I've gone through in order to find someone who is willing to share their Heart with me-"

"I am not a child!" Alfred yelled back at him. "How many times do I have to tell you? I am two hundred and fifty three years old; over two _centuries_ older than you! I've lived through much more than you have or ever will."

"I don't care! I don't care how old you are, Alfred, humans don't live that long compared to dragons, remember?"

"Then what do you care about?" Alfred threw his hands up in the air, annoyed and exasperated with his companion. "Please, enlighten me oh brilliant one, because I always seem to get everything wrong according to you!"

"I don't want to be alone!" Arthur finally screamed and his voice echoed throughout the barren landscape. "Alright? Are you happy now? _I don't want to be alone_. Not again, not now, not _ever_. Not after everything that has happened, not after you _left_ me the first time-"

"Oh please, Arthur that was such a long time ago. Get over it." Alfred snapped. "You were a kid; you had no idea what was going on."

"I knew enough to know that you we're going and never coming back after you promised me that you wouldn't." Arthur said through his teeth. "It was still a promise. And you broke it."

"Yeah, kinda like the promise that you wouldn't use magic unless you needed to." Alfred said in an annoyingly thoughtful tone. "But you broke that one."

"This was different; this was a promise that we would Lock Hearts one day-"

"And we still did anyways like twenty years later. So? What's the big issue?"

"This issue, Alfred, is that I don't understand why I ever decided to Lock Hearts with you in the first place." The words were out of Arthur's mouth before he had the chance to think about what he was saying. Immediately, he wished he could take it back, but the stony look on Alfred's face stopped him.

"Is that what you think?" Alfred asked quietly.

"I- yes. That is what I think."

"Well, you know what _I _think?"

"What?" Arthur felt dread begin to build up inside of him; this conversation was going downhill very quickly, and it wasn't exactly a good idea to have a dragon mad at you.

"I think," Alfred said, taking a step closer to Arthur so that they were literally nose-to-nose. "That you are a selfish, annoying, cranky old man that has nothing better to do than to be mad at the world for things that happened decades ago. To put it frankly, you are a pain in the ass, Arthur Kirkland."

Arthur gasped at the insults. "I am not old! I am twenty three years old and I have the right to dwell on the worst memories of my life as long as I want to! You are the one who is selfish and immature for abandoning me!"

"News flash, _people leave_. It's a part of life."

"I _adored_ you and you just got up and left-"

"Oh, good, it's nice to know that you actually cared for me at one point in your miserable life-"

Arthur threw his hands up in the air before he was physically aware of what he was doing. Alfred was ripped away from him, thrown up into the air and into a nearby tree trunk. His head made a loud thump as it banged into the hard wood before he crashed into the ground. He didn't get up.

Arthur was breathing heavy, so overcome by rage that all he could see was red. His hands were shaking in the air, but eventually he was able to calm down and he lower his arms. Only after that did he become aware of what had just happened.

His eyes fell onto Alfred's still form and he instantly paled.

"Alfred," Arthur breathed and rushed over to his companion. "Alfred? Alfred, are you alright?"

He shook Alfred's arm, but the other didn't respond. Arthur quickly checked for blood, and found a gash across Alfred's forehead. It wasn't bleeding heavily and the cut was shallow, but the sight made Arthur's head spin. He took a few measured breaths and placed a steady hand on the scratch.

"Heal," he whispered and felt some of his energy flow out of him and through his fingers into Alfred. He opened his eyes slowly, and was relieved to find that the gash was healing itself. Arthur slumped against the trunk, still shocked at what had just occurred.

Had he seriously just hurt Alfred? The one person who mattered more to him than anyone else in the entire world? The dragon to which he had trusted his Heart with? His very life? Arthur automatically reached up to touch the leather cord around his neck and fingered the pendant attached to it. It was a shinning silver star, and Arthur could feel the steady pulse of the cold metal. This thing around his neck was Alfred's Heart, and around Alfred's neck was Arthur's. They had made a promise to take care and watch over each other. They had made an oath to support each other at the cost of their lives. Yet here they were, fighting like they were teenagers.

Arthur laughed bitterly to himself and shook his head. God, he was so stupid. Granted so was Alfred, but responsibility wise, Arthur was the adult here. He should know better than to bicker with the person he had Locked Hearts with. Even though Alfred boasted about his age, he was still a kid in dragon years. He had taken care of Arthur when he had been but an orphan, but now it was Arthur's turn to take care of Alfred.

There was a groan, and Alfred stirred next to him. Arthur remained where he was; he wanted to go over and apologize to Alfred, but it was likely that the teenager was still mad at him. He watched as Alfred's blue eyes opened and how he blinked with confusion. Then he looked around and his gaze fell upon Arthur.

"Arthur," he said. He didn't sound angry any more, much to Arthur's relief. "What happened?"

"Uh, I- we- we got into a fight." Arthur said. Alfred's brow furrowed.

"No, I know that," Alfred said. "What- why does my head hurt? The last thing I remember was you and me yelling at each other-"

"'You and I', Alfred." Arthur corrected. "And, I think I accidently made you crash into a tree." He said quickly, rushing at the end.

Alfred blinked slowly. "You…you…you crashed me into a tree?"

"Yes," Arthur admitted. "But, I swear, I did not mean to! It was an accident-"

Suddenly, Alfred was laughing. His voice rang in Arthur's ears, shocking him like Alfred's laughter always did. It was so deep and rich, completely different from human laughter.

"I find it hard to believe that it was an accident!" Alfred finally gasped. "You looked like you were ready to rip my head off!"

"Well, I was very angry. And you kind of deserved it."

Alfred snorted. "If deserved a good head bashing, than so do you."

Arthur's panic transformed back into annoyance. "If you think for one second-"

"Arthur, dude, chill." Alfred rolled his eyes. "It's okay."

"It's okay? You're not mad at me?"

"Arthur, no, of course not. I mean, we've both been under a lot of stress lately. I don't blame you for getting mad at me every once in a while. Actually, I probably needed a slap to relax."

"O-oh," Arthur said softly.

"And, I guess that it was kind of unfair for me to leave you alone in a corner in the bar while I ran off to have some fun with a bunch of girls. So, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too, Alfred. I didn't mean to hurt you." He reached forward and brushed away the other's gold bangs. "You know that, right?"

Alfred nodded. "'Course. Just, tell me next time when I do something wrong, alright? I can't read minds even if I am a dragon."

"Okay," Arthur agreed.

"Is that a promise?" Alfred asked, staring intently at Arthur.

"Yes," he said firmly. "It's a promise. For life."

(Locked)

**2/23/2012**

**Oh, wow, I don't even know what happened with this story. It just sorta ran away from me. I hope it all makes as much sense written as it does in my mind.**

**I do not own Hetalia.**


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